MONROE  At first glance, its an unlikely combination. A black family seated under a tent facing a line of Civil War re-enactors, proudly holding Confederate flags and gripping their weapons.

But what lies between these two groups is what brought them together: An unmarked grave about to get its due, belonging to a slave who fought for the Confederacy.

Weary Clyburn was best friends with his masters son, Frank. When Frank left the plantation to fight in the Civil War, Clyburn followed him.

He fought alongside Frank and even saved his life on two occasions.

On July 18, the city of Monroe proclaimed Weary Clyburn Day; an event that coincided with the Sons of Confederate Veterans convention in Concord.

The N.C. Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans (James Miller Camp 2116) honored Clyburn, who died March 30, 1930, with a memorial program at Hillcrest Cemetery in Monroe and unveiled a new headstone for his unmarked grave.

Its an honor to find out we have a gentleman who served ... with loyalty and devotion to his friend, said Commander Michael Chapman of the local SCV chapter.

Im happy to be here. Its a glorious day, said Mary Elizabeth Clyburn Hooks of New Jersey. I just think its beautiful these people chose to celebrate my grandfathers bravery and courage. Its just overwhelming.

Missing from the event was the woman who helped bring the pieces together, Mattie Clyburn Rice of High Point, who remembered the stories her father shared with her as a child.

Rice was hospitalized the morning of the ceremony.

Rice remembered being at her fathers funeral, said Earl Ijames, a curator at the N.C. Office of Archives and History. He told her stories, and being able to verify those stories brought this event together, he said.

Ijames met Rice when she was at the state Archives Office looking for her birth certificate in August 2005. She was in the wrong department and he struck up a conversation with her. Ijames asked Rice her name and upon hearing Clyburn, asked if she had ever heard of Weary Clyburn.

She looked straight at me and said, Thats my daddy, he said.

Ijames has been researching colored Confederates for the past 14 years. According to Rice, he said, Clyburns father sharecropped and painted after the war. He moved from Lancaster County, S.C., and eventually settled in Union County. Rice moved away but relocated to North Carolina three years ago to take care of her nephew.

An impressive crowd gathered at the gravesite to pay tribute to Weary Clyburn. Civil War re-enactors, dressed in full regalia, came from overseas and states as far away as California and Pennsylvania to the program.

Were here to honor Weary Clyburn, but really, the honor is ours, said N.C. SCV Commander Tom Smith. The Sons of Confederate Veterans honors our own and hes one of our own. We need to do more of what were doing now."

Weary Clyburn was one of thousands of slaves who served in the Confederate Army, Ijames said. Theres no way to quantify the number of slaves who served. But its in the thousands, easy.

People today often wonder why slaves fought for the Confederacy. Ijames said the only course they had to freedom was through the Confederate Army. Why not go and defend what they know versus running away and going to the unknown, Ijames said. A lot of us automatically assume the war started to free slaves. Thats not true. It was a war to preserve the Union as the way it was.

Slaves were not allowed to fight in the federal army, Ijames said. Those that made their way behind Union lines were still considered slaves.

Clyburn escaped the plantation and made his way to Columbia, S.C., where he met up with Frank in boot camp. They were best friends, Ijames said.

although it would have been a rare southerner who would have publicly claimed a slave or any black man as his best friend.

You're projecting as if you lived 160+ years ago. All you know is the yankee revisionist history that you've swallowed.

Was Weary a true volunteer? Was it possible for Weary to be a true volunteer? If Frank told him to go to war, could he decide to stay on the plantation? If Frank told him to stay home, could he decide to follow Frank anyway? Was it possible for Weary to make a free choice about anything in his life?

Like I said earlier, you yankees have a fixed opinion of the South that will never change. That's why, even today, us local Southerners despise you damnyankee transplants.

24
posted on 07/27/2008 3:41:39 PM PDT
by cowboyway
("The beauty of the Second Amendment is you won't need it until they try to take it away"--Jefferson)

The point is, Watson, is that blacks weren't allowed to participate in your precious union until your precious union was on the brink of collapse. disHonest Abe and the damnyankee congress, in a panic, changed the rules to protect their financial interests and sent blacks, whom they used as tools to initiate an illegal war, to their deaths.

25
posted on 07/27/2008 3:46:27 PM PDT
by cowboyway
("The beauty of the Second Amendment is you won't need it until they try to take it away"--Jefferson)

Like I said earlier, you yankees have a fixed opinion of the South that will never change.

Is that why you make no attempt to answer any of my questions?

Is it possible for any slave to be truly a volunteer? Would a southern (or, less unanimously, northern) white man of 1861 have publicly claimed a black man as his "best friend," thus implicitly assigning him status as an equal?

If you can come up with some valid answers to my questions, as opposed to non-responsive victimized rants, I'm perfectly willing to change my mind.

Thank you. My source wasn’t the most scholarly. Probably listed when the bill was introduced. I do know they bitched and moaned about it in Congress for an extended period.

I recently read a book about the Confederate government during the war. Very sad reading about the last debates in early 1865. The morons would stand up and make elaborate arguments about property rights and the protection of the white race while their ship was sinking around them.

Almost as dumb as the Union slaveowners refusing to accept compensated emancipation in 1864 or 65. Surely by that time any idiot could see that slavery was going bye-bye. Might as well get some compensation. But the slaveowners were dumb to even see that.

-btw fella I did a cursory check and did not find an account like the one you described. Perhaps you would be good enough to point out on which pages the negro confederates Custer whuppin is described.

The point is, Watson, is that blacks weren't allowed to participate in your precious union until your precious union was on the brink of collapse.

I would point out that the Union being 'on the brink of collapse' at any time during the rebellion is a figment of your imagination. Like most of you posts.

The first black regiment was raised in Kansas starting in July 1862, less than 18 months after the rebellion began. The first black unit in the rebel army was raised in March 1865, 47 months after the rebellion began. A bit of a difference, wouldn't you agree?

disHonest Abe and the damnyankee congress, in a panic, changed the rules to protect their financial interests and sent blacks, whom they used as tools to initiate an illegal war, to their deaths.

Your mindset is that of a big city yankee. You need the mindset of a rural lifestyle where the plantation or farm and the people on it are the only thing you see for long periods. Where your entire work and social world is wrapped up in that rural area.

With that in mind, lets get back to the story or Weary. The yankee mindset pictures all the antebellum South as one huge cotton plantation run by a hands off gentleman planter and worked by thousands of mistreated slaves.

Of course, there were large plantations with hundreds of slaves but in the area of NC where Weary was from the farms were usually much smaller. There's a good chance that Weary's family were the only slaves on this farm and that Frank and his family worked side by side with them in the fields. Without the pressures of the city social scene it is easy to understand that Frank and Weary could have spent many a day fishing, hunting, etc., and not even think about the class system at play.

Given that environment, it's also easy to believe that once Frank joined the Confederate Army, that Weary could have asked permission of Frank's father to join, also.

That's the best way I can explain it.

36
posted on 07/28/2008 5:57:34 AM PDT
by cowboyway
("The beauty of the Second Amendment is you won't need it until they try to take it away"--Jefferson)

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